


We'll Fly Again, One Day

by LuckyPossums



Category: Apex Legends (Video Games)
Genre: F/F, Light Angst, Mutual Pining, Past Relationship(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-30
Updated: 2020-07-30
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:42:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,286
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25606051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LuckyPossums/pseuds/LuckyPossums
Summary: A normal person would usually figure that a bloodsport competition like the Apex Games were enough to keep someone on their toes.However, someone else has caught Sunbird's attention as of late and yet she hasn't decided if Anita Williams is a blessing in disguise or a memory better left to the past.
Relationships: Bangalore | Anita Williams/Sunbird | Laura Bumatay
Comments: 1
Kudos: 6





	We'll Fly Again, One Day

**Author's Note:**

> Sunbird is an amazing original character made by Lumen and I encourage you to find out all about her on their twitter (https://twitter.com/lumenizampel)!

There were all sorts of advantages to winning. Experience, experimentation, research, funding and a list of positives that Laura had weighed before she had become an Apex Legend. However, she had not survived this long without learning that with those same advantages came disadvantages.

This particular disadvantage came in the form of an awkward dropship journey after a pleasant victory. That same pleasantness would have continued if not for the frigid tension that seemed to permeate every conversation that Laura had with Anita.

In the games, it almost disappeared. _Almost_. At those times, there were so many other things to focus on, enemies, weapons, attachments, those things were all far more important than dwelling on any awkward moments or behaviour between the two.

If their third member had survived past the first ring than perhaps it would have been easier to bear the discomfort in the dropship. At least then, Laura would have had someone to bounce a conversation off of.

"You weren't half-bad out there," Anita told her. It hadn't escaped her notice that unlike most legends, Anita made no effort to take off her gear after the games were over.

"Half-bad?" Laura asked her and made sure to raise an eyebrow. "I'll remember that generosity next time we play together.

Anita huffed, never only 'Bangalore' to her, after all, Laura had never been able to shake the image of that young rifleman in the IMC that felt like a lifetime ago. She should have tried harder to replace that thought with the woman before her now, yet it was always young eager Anita of the IMC that rose to her mind first.

After a moment, Anita agreed, "fine, you held your own. Just don't get too cocky because you've got beginner's luck on your side."

Ignoring the fact that she had played in enough games by now that she was hardly a 'beginner', she said simply, "it has nothing to do with luck. There is a method to this sort of thing."

"And what part of your 'method' was ditching your weapon to take on that guy with your legs instead?" Anita asked her with that same familiar half-smile that Laura remembered.

Laura's thumb brushed some of the mud from the prosthetic of her left leg before she said, "well...the most important part of the method is the end result."

"And not because you wanted to show off right?" She asked as if she already knew the answer.

"Of course not," she said smoothly, "when you are left with no ammo you have no other choice."

She thought she caught Anita rolling her eyes when she said, "yeah sure, I just hope that it was worth it."

"We were the victors at the end of the day," Laura reminded her.

"Sure," she agreed easily, "I just can't believe they kept you huddled down with the rest of the engineers instead of trying your hand in the field."

Laura didn't have to ask who _they_ were and it was exactly why she hadn't wanted to be in the dropship with Anita alone. There was nothing wrong with her and instead it had everything to do with the IMC. They'd both had a place there once, Laura fixing and upgrading the gear of young riflemen like Anita whose place was on the battlefield. They'd shared ideas, then stories, then hopes and dreams of the future ahead of them.

And then Laura had left and Anita had stayed.

She swallowed and murmured, "we all saw our share of combat then."

"Then and now," Anita reminded her as if it needed saying, "except last time the enemy at least had the decency of being obvious."

_ Were they _ ? She wanted to ask.

It had been easier back then to distance herself from the war when she had been couped up focusing on the opportunities that the IMC had given her when no one else had. She'd built her own tech and inevitably mastered it in the way that few others in her field had ever understood prosthetics and mobility aids. She had been handed the opportunity of a lifetime and she had thought that only a fool would let it pass.

It was that same single-minded focus that had only allowed her to realise what had happened to her home until it was far too late to change the IMC's course.

It wasn't easy, yet Laura managed to ask, "and who is it now?"

Anita answered easily, "let's just say that I'm surprised that none of the competitors are journalists, never seen someone as power-hungry as those leaches."

"I suppose we will have to entertain them soon enough," she said.

The dropship couldn't be too far now and the media would swarm in hordes to the get the first words from the latest Apex Champions.

"The usual questions and the usual responses," Anita muttered.

"Responses?" She asked, bringing back a light tone to her voice. "I'm not sure the journalists would count being threatened as a satisfactory response."

Anita huffed, "I didn't say anything about it being a nice response and I know that you're itching just as much as I am to lob a chair into a crowd of them."

Laura wasn't certain if unusual cruelty was a common trait among all reporters but it was certainly a commonality among the ones she'd met. They had no interest in the charities she tried to uphold and support, no care for her destroyed home in Milagros, the only thing they cared for was news to spread.

They wanted to know about the IMC, what she had done and if she still worked for them. She had spoken softly, then firmly that her connections to the IMC had been null since she had left and yet they always asked.

They asked about Anita too but in a different way. In the way that made those reporters lean forward with a heavy smile on their face and ask what place the legend Bangalore had in her past. Regardless of what Anita was to her, it wasn't for them to know.

"Some things are worth persevering," Laura murmured the light joke to Anita.

She wouldn't raise her voice against those reporters, not when she represented so many people who needed her work. Not when the media could tear down the charities that she had given almost everything she had to.

"I'm only saying that you might get better results using that fancy tech of yours on those leaches instead of us," Anita told her.

"Us?"

"The Legends, the other competitors, whatever poor prowler ends up at your feet," she explained with nothing more than a shrug to add.

_ Us _ . Now that was certainly a far cry from the Anita that she remembered. The young sergeant never seemed active to make friends first, for her it was always her position and her work that came above all. Yet that had only meant that Laura had loved to see how she softened around her with stories of her family’s karaoke competitions at Christmas. The stories of a family that Laura used to wonder if one day she would have a place in.

"So," Anita said while glancing towards one of her prosthetic legs that been detached, "are you planning on swinging that leg at some journalist the second they open the dropship doors or is there a reason you haven't put it back on yet?"

Laura lifted her bandaged hands, "my hands took the brunt of a thermite grenade and my prosthetics require a certain level of…Delicacy when handling."

Her right leg was resting on her lap, she'd done her best to try to reattach it to her leg and her mobility aids yet her burnt hands felt raw and sensitive at every pinprick movement. Syringes could only do so much for this delicate sort of healing process.

"You could've just said something."

"I didn't want to keep the pilot from his important work of keeping us from plummeting into the ground."

Anita certainly rolled her eyes that time, "I meant me smart ass, you know you can rely on me, right?"

Could she?

"I did say delicate-"

"Oh for-" Anita broke off into a groan that without a doubt was meant to cover a swear. "Just tell me what to do, I'll be your hands for you."

Laura didn't say anything more but Anita didn't need the confirmation. She moved from her side of the dropship, undeterred by any turbulence to take a seat next to her and take her prosthetic.

"This looks more technical than I expected," Anita commented when the silence began to creep in again.

"Thank you."

The corner of her lip quirked upwards, "not quite a compliment Birdie."

Birdie. To anyone else, even the prying media, it would simply be a nickname for her legend callsign as Sunbird.

To them, it was a call to the past of evenings spent fixing Anita's gear while the solider learnt to braid her hair. Back then it was a pet name, now it was a question of 'how often do you think about what we used to be?'

Laura hummed, "I know but complexity is why you can rely on me in a fight."

_ And outside of one _ , she was almost tempted to say yet she couldn't figure out if she meant it as a tease or a promise.

"They just look simpler on the outside," she mumbled as she inspected the prosthetic, "didn't figure it would look much different aside from that."

"The true issue is with the mobility aids not the prosthetic," she told her, tracing a hand down the damaged gear on her thighs, "it may be too difficult to fix without any tools."

Anita didn't lose her focus when she said, "well, never say never."

She really hadn't changed a bit.

Laura had seen the legends look to her as a leader in the same way that the younger recruits did when she was promoted to sergeant. Yet she had never thought of Anita as a leader, especially not one within the IMC who could climb the ranks.

Those people were objective and Anita...She softened too easily to pause to heal a scuffed knee, all the while she would scold them of course but Laura knew it was only out of fear for their safety.

Leaders in the IMC only paid attention to weakness so that they could cut it out.

"I know that they are very nice," Laura told her as Anita fiddled aimlessly with the leg, "but you do know that fondling my leg won't help don't you?"

Anita's lips seemed to curve back into a smile for only a moment before she asked, "do you need me to get the pilot to send a message to get you a wheelchair or another engineer to help?"

"Hm..."

"I could always princess carry you through the crowds," Anita interrupted her thoughts to tease. Another silent question, 'do remember us?'

She smiled faintly, "I'm sure the media would love that."

"Sure, maybe then they'd quit dragging out those deep-web conspiracy theories," Anita laughed, "ha, ‘the IMC stole her legs to power a superweapon.’"

It almost felt automatic when her hand curled around the cold steel of the dropship bench beneath her, needing something to hold her down, hold her back.

Yet that was certainly Laura's mouth that said, "no they did worse."

Milagros had never been cold like this. Even the winters kept that warm taste of the summer heat, a promise that it would always return. Her home had been a humble place, a warm hearth to return to, somewhere that she had once pictured bringing Anita to in the holidays.

That same home hadn't stood a chance against the IMC.

"Birdie-"

"So how does the conspiracy theory go about the superweapon?" She asked bitterly, she needed to have this control. "It sounds very funny."

The IMC had never taken her legs. They'd been the ones to offer her the opportunity to leave her home and had granted her the tools to create the tech that had created her prosthetics.

She had been grateful when she left her home to develop the gear for the people that she could not feel anything but indebted to. She had never expected to return to a planet on fire.

"I wasn't trying to-" Anita murmured softly like she was a frenzied animal.

"No, no I want to hear how it goes," she stopped her, "I want to hear what they're saying about me."

She already knew what they said about her. She could see it in every interview as they smiled with those perfect white teeth and they would force their tone to become sympathetic when they asked her what happened to Milagros.

And then they would ask about the IMC as if it was a piece of gossip. 'Do you still have any connections?' 'How long did you work there?' 'What do you know about the Ares division?'

'Did you know what was going to happen to Milagros?'

"I didn't mean..." Anita trailed off helplessly. "Shit, Laura I wasn't trying to bring that up."

But she had.

"May I have my leg back?" Was all she asked.

"I didn't mean to drag the past out," she said, "especially here."

Her breath felt shaky as she inhaled, "at least the media isn't pretending that it never happened."

"It?"

"The IMC, what they did, us, any of those things," Laura murmured.

"I'm not pretending that it never happened," Anita said, her voice still low. "I figured you didn't want me airing out dirty laundry to anyone in the games."

And in those games, they could fall into that easy pattern of defence and offence that suited them so well. But there would always be cracks, Anita would always call her Birdie and she would always answer.

"And what about outside of the games Anita?"

"Why would you even want that?" She asked her. "What do you want me to say to you?"

Laura took another long breath, "I am not looking for an apology but is it so easy for you to treat me like a stranger?"

"I don't have anything to apologise for," Anita said immediately, "I wasn't a part of what happened."

A part of what had happened to Laura's home and family. No, Anita hadn't been there but she had stayed. Whether it was for her brother Jackson or for the IMC, well, Laura had left before she could ask.

"I already said that I don't want-"

"But you'd feel better if you had gotten one before you disappeared," she cut her off, "news flash, I'm not the one who left without saying anything."

_ Rise above it,  _ Laura tried to tell herself. She didn't join the games to find closure, she didn't join them for Anita. She had peoples, organisations and charities all to represent. She couldn't live only for herself.

Yet she couldn't help when her voice snapped to ask, "so instead, you want me to apologise to you. You know what the IMC did to my family so how could even ask that?"

"I don't want an apology either," Anita said flatly. "I was never mad that you left the IMC."

"If not mad then what?" She asked. "Which one was it, sad, disappointed, upset?"

Anita grit her teeth, "it wasn't like that, it was never about the IMC."

"Then what was it-"

Laura already knew what it was the moment she began to speak.

It was something that she had always known but it was so much easier to force it down and away so that she could leave. Leaving the IMC had meant leaving Anita, it was an inevitability that neither of them could have accepted.

"Sometimes I think that head of yours is made of hardlight," Anita mumbled against the silence.

"No, it's not that," she responded weakly, "I knew how you felt but I had no other choice but to leave."

She nodded simply, "I know."

"Anita I'm not trying to make excuses for myself-"

"I wasn't being sarcastic Birdie," she interrupted, "I knew you weren't going to stay. It was family, I get that."

The family that could have been Anita's as well if things had gone differently then.

Laura murmured, "I'm sorry that I never tried to reach out to you afterwards."

"I already said that I don't want an apology," she told her.

"I was going to send a message."

That made Anita pause for a second, "what changed?"

"There..." She stopped for a moment to find her words. "There was so much that I needed to rebuild at home...And I was angry and perhaps I still am."

"At the IMC or at me?"

Her fingers traced the prosthetic on her lap, "if only it were that simple."

"Normally, when someone says something's 'complicated' it means that they just want to skirt around the problem," she grumbled.

"I'm talking to you now am I not?" Laura asked her.

When she'd left she hadn't said a word to Anita. Part of her had hoped that she would awake one morning to see a dropship with her there, a fantasy that Anita would reject the IMC as well all for Laura's sake.

Yet she hadn't. She'd stayed, whether for her brother and family or for the cause, Laura had never known. She hadn't missed the way that Anita still spoke of the IMC, that not everyone was cruel or corrupt. Still, enough were and it had defined the organisation's actions.

"Well," Anita said, "whatever it is you feel, let me know when you make up your mind and you can have your space 'til then."

"I never said that," she said quietly, "in fact, I said that I didn't want you to treat me like a stranger."

She didn't break eye contact when she asked, "and what are you going to treat me like?"

"I..." She trailed off, considering exactly what to say as if there was some perfect outcome. "I remember helping you with your armour when you were the new foot soldier and you were rushing out the door before I could strap on your gear."

Anita stared at her, "so...You want me to run into fights without gear?"

"Don't you dare Anita," Laura chided her, "what I meant was, there's too much history for me to pretend as if I do not know you. At the same time, things cannot be the way they were."

She sighed heavily, "so you want to scold me for not being prepared but you don't want a girlfriend to make out with during matches."

"Anita!"

"What?" She groaned. "You were sounding so serious, doesn't suit you one bit, that's what you basically meant anyway right?"

Right. Laura still had so much to do, so much to learn and so much to build. She'd painstakingly made those plans when she'd left the IMC and Anita had never had a place in them.

Her place had been confined to Laura's memories.

"Yes," Laura decided. That worked. "We are on the same page then."

"Good, same page," Anita mimicked with a softness that escaped Laura's notice.

In those days when they were younger, a moment between just the two of them would have been a respite that would always curve her lips into a smile.

However, those feelings had belonged to another person, to the young girl in her past who had been so ready to prove herself. Now between the two of them, those feelings felt like a relic, something only sentimental that she felt whenever Anita called her Birdie. 

Pure sentimentality, surely that was all this feeling was.


End file.
